Skin, Cosplay, School, and Mental Health Rant
Hello! So I need to rant right now, as there is a lot of shit going on with my life. This is going to be a longer post of mine. Sorry of it becomes ramblely later on. Here we go! Let's start with my skin. As you may be able to tell with amount of eczema post I have been rebloging, that I have eczema. I have this skin condition my whole life, however, in my late teens into my early 20s it has seemed to worsen at an exponential rate to where it almost covers my entire body. If you follow me on snapchat or Instagram you already know this; the eczema was the main reason I could not cosplay at Forest City Comicon. With eczema I cannot put on makeup or wear certain fabrics as it will worsen the flare (if you do not know why this is the case, I have made a rant on this already. So message me to see it and I will send it to you). So cosplaying is near impossible. Now you are probably asking as to what this has to do with me currently. While I have cleared my eczema up a bit in the last month to where it was manageable. The other day I decided to go outside to study. When I came in for lunch my eczema on my face and arms came back with vengeance. I had a moderate flare up in those areas. I got my cream on them and the calmed down (thank god). The same thing happened on Monday walking home from my exam. From what my family can somewhat deduce from that, is that my eczema was triggered from the heat. This has never happened before so why now? Well the cream I have thins my skin, but it is all I have (again mentioned in the prior rant) to fight this bastard. This results in my skin being more sensitive to the sun. With that being said, it resulted in my mild eczema to freak the fuck out and flare. Now thanks to that flare on Monday, my eczema has flared in my hair. What's the huge problem you say? Why don't I just stay inside? This is where part of the cosplay comes in. For me, the con season starts at Anime North. So this gives me a month to clear it off in the noticeable spots. This would require me to stay indoors; not to really use the parts of my body that have eczema; slather a shit tonne of cream on my body (including my hair); and to watch my diet. Now the diet part is easy; I do it at the start of every con season. But the rest of it is going to be a bitch. I cannot say indoors. For the cosplay I plan on making for AN I have to go outside to paint, because of the fumes. Plus I have to walk to work to get money to do cosplay. Also I have to walk to the mall to buy stuff for it as well. Staying indoors is not an option. Now for not moving. That can't happen for reasons mentioned prior. The most challenging part is the cream. I have to do this regardless. Now when it comes to my sewing and wig styling, this is where the challenge is. I have to figure out how to make these without getting cream on everything(which is a challenge everyday not just when I have to make shit). The cream I use is a bitch to get out of fabric, or anything really. Once it is there it is near impossible to get out. So making my shit in time for AN is going to be a rocky road. Like before you are wondering "why the fuck are you panicking Andrea!?! You have a month until AN! You must have some stuff done!" ...Yeah no I don't. This is where school comes into play. As you can tell on here (more so of you follow me on snapchat) that I am a history major. So when it comes to the month of March, that is our hell month. April is our exam month so we are non-stop (legit I feel like Alexander Hamilton with the never ending essays). Why don't I work on my cosplays when I don't have exams? Well two reasons for that. The first is that I am not working right now. Not that any thing is wrong with me at work, however, I had to book the entire month off to study so I don't have much to spend on cosplay right now. Secondly, my school is an ass to the history department. This year for exams, they decided to fuck over all the history majors. The put all but one history teachers exams at the end of the month. The only reason why they didn't put one at the end is because he is in China at the end of the month for archival research. So they put him at the beginning of the exam period, had the take home exams due the second week and the rest of the exams at the end for the history department. Guess who had an exam every week this month? This unlucky bastard. Basically I have not touched my cosplays since the middle of February. I have to make one fully; modify two of the heavily; make a prop gun from scratch (which I have no fucking clue how to do); and style five wigs (which I love doing but it adds to the list of shit to do). So I have no clue how I'm going to do it all in four weeks with this eczema on my body. This brings me to my finally part of the rant, mental health. Now a lot of you don't know is that, I have bad anxiety. With there so much pressure on me this year for school (with my grades now being looked at for master degrees), my anxiety has amplified ten fold. I got to the point where I was having flash backs to five years ago (long story short, I use to have about 15+ panic attacks a week[for the full story send me a message]), as I was up to having a panic attack a day. It was getting to the point where my doctor finally prescribed me a pill for it. It is hopefully temporary measure until school is done. The anxiety pill has helped me a lot since taking them. I feel less like death mentally. However, there is side affects to the pills, mainly drowsiness. I feel tired a lot more then I did. Bringing in eczema again. With the eczema I do have a pill that is to numb the itching a bit. What does this have to do with the price of eggs? Well the eczema pill also causes drowsiness. Add that to what the anxiety pill is doing, my body can't stay awake. This requires me to nap for about an hour or so each day. During exam season this is very bad, as it cuts into my study time. This results in me staying up late to study. Staying up late puts physical stress on my body. Guess what acts up because of it? If you guess my pain in the ass eczema then you are correct. In summary, Andrea is basically a tired ass student, who's body is a mess and is being crushed a bolder that is her to-do list. This is why I have not been really active on other forms of media recently. I am sorry if you follow me on other platforms and want content. It will come soon; I just have to get over my last exam. I may be posting updates to my life on here if I find a chance to breathe. Sorry for such a long rant. I thank you for reading my rambles. I hope you have a great day! Andrea
